Eggyhead

Unlike many other games, the biggest draw to the Trails franchise is its world. The entire franchise is divided several story arcs. One arc can come to a close, but then it becomes a part of the story for every game that follows. New protagonists may find themselves interacting with older protagonists, antagonists that had a minor role in one arc will have a major role in another... The story can keep going as long as you're willing to start the next arc in the series.

If anyone is interested in getting into a JRPG series that isn't Final Fantasy, this is a superb candidate. Trails in the Sky is where it all kicks off.

So let's get down to it.

Tutorial: Trails in the Sky (FC) on M-series Macs

• Download & Install Whisky (A wine wrapper thing that works with apple's translation stuff.)
• Download Steam (Grab the windows ver)

Mac Settings > Privacy & Security > App Management

• Add Whiskey (Doing this helps prevent game installations in Steam from freezing later on.)

Whiskey

1. Add new bottle (I named it “Steam”)
2. When finished: Bottle Configuration > Enhanced Sync = Off (Having this disabled also helps prevent game installations in Steam from freezing later on.)
3. Select Winetricks > DLLs, find and run amstream, quartz, and Lavfilters. (This will provide codecs to allow videos to play.)
4. Click the “Run” button, select SteamSetup.exe, give it a moment to launch.
5. Go through the install process, login, sign in, the whole shebang.

Steam

1. Purchase/Install The Legend of Heroes Trails in the Sky.
2. Launch the game by selecting “Play”, then select “Launch Configuration Tool”. Give it a moment.
3. Display > Resolution = set whatever you prefer (M1 MBP = 3024 x 1964)
4. Display > Windowed Mode = Off (In Windowed Mode at native resolution, mouse & keyboard tracking doesn’t work right for some reason. It might not be an issue if you use a gamepad. With Windowed Mode disabled, cmd+tab can minimize the game.)
5. Input > Field Turbo Rate = 6x, Battle Turbo Rate = 6x; Default = "Run"
6. Select “OK” to close the configuration tool.
7. Select “Play”, “Play Legend of Heroes Trail in the Sky”

Enjoy the game.

Hope this works for you. Good luck.

I apologize, I’ve been out of the loop for more than a decade with piracy, so I have a dumb question.

My friend has a cracked version of Baldur’s Gate 3 (GOG, I think) and I want to play online with him. I don’t mind actually buying the game for myself on Steam so I can install it on both my Mac and Deck, but I don’t want to spend the money if it means a legit copy that doesn’t play nice with his cracked copy.

Can cracked games play online with legit games, would I need a cracked copy as well, or is online MP simply out of the question?

Thanks to anyone willing to give a response.